


i'll blow out the flame (can you and me remain)

by mysteriesofloves



Series: i'll blow out the flame (can you and me remain) [1]
Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: 4x16 AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28685229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysteriesofloves/pseuds/mysteriesofloves
Summary: When he wakes up, his arm is asleep.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf
Series: i'll blow out the flame (can you and me remain) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146437
Comments: 20
Kudos: 106





	i'll blow out the flame (can you and me remain)

**Author's Note:**

> post-4x16 au, fluffy sexy nonsense. title from changes by stars.

_The worst kind,_ Blair says, looming over him with her hands pressed to his chest. _An intellectual —_

When he wakes up, his arm is asleep. 

It’s like the lights coming up in the theatre, the slow blink as he comes to his surroundings. Blair’s head droops at his shift, and his hand is there to cradle it before he can stop himself, some residual instinct he’s still trying to wax away. It wakes her, and he’s not sure why it makes his stomach dip, the drawing of her brows as she tips her chin up to look at him. She regains composure quickly, pulling her knees away from his, her skirt riding up her thighs as she straightens, the sheer black of her stockings like a mosaic on her pale skin.

“How long have I been asleep?”

He kicks at his laptop until the screen lights back up. “Hour,” he mumbles. Then, “You can stay.”

Her brow arches, less sardonic and more curious. He clarifies, “It’s late. I can take the couch.”

Blair’s lips part for a moment before she speaks. “As much as I would find joy in driving you out of your bed, I think I can manage getting home.”

He nods, a little stilted. She pats his knee companionably. “Well. Thank you.”

There’s a beat, like she’s waiting for him to say something, and then she stands, slipping back into her mismatched shoes. He smiles a little at them, and when he looks up at her, she’s smiling a little at him, too.

“Seeing as my schedule’s cleared up, I suppose I could join you at the Joseph Beuys exhibit,” she lingers in the doorway, turning over her shoulder to look at him. “That is, if you still want me to?”

“Of course,” he says, a little too quickly. He clears his throat. “No, yeah, I do.”

She nods, taking that same small beat before shutting the door, leaving him alone again in the blue-dark of the loft. It feels oddly empty without her. It hasn’t felt like a home in a long time, not the way it used to; not since Mom left, and Jenny, and Dad. Like the paint that chips and curls around the walls, little by little the loft lost what made it whole. It was nice, having someone there with him, making the space feel alive again. 

Dan doesn’t want to think of Blair as some kind of missing piece, because she can’t be. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved. 

When he brings a hand up to rub over his face, he smells her perfume on the sleeve of his sweater. 

The knock is light, uncertain enough that it could just be the wind against the windows. But he pulls the door back open just in case, and she’s there, her lower lip pulled between her teeth. 

“Did you forget something?”

Blair nods, her hand light on the doorframe. And then she kisses him, as light and uncertain as the knock.

She’s gone before he has the chance to respond, settling back, wide eyes staring up at him. She looks about ready to run, and as much as he wants to say something, wants to ask what this is and what they’re doing and what it means, he knows all it’ll take is one step back, both of them still stuck in the space between the dark hallway and the inside of the loft, and all Dan has ever done is let things pass, let things go because he asked too much. So he brings both his hands up to hold her face, kissing her with a kind of assurance that he doesn’t feel. 

She takes a step forward. 

The door closes and her back is pressed up against it and he’s peripherally aware that it’s him doing it, his hands in her hair, his mouth sucking on her bottom lip, but it feels like it must be someone else, like she would never let him touch her like this, how he’s wanted to but has been pretending that he hasn’t. The fists in his sweater are hers, relaxing and smoothing down his sides, her arms around his hips, hugging him closer, her palms pressed on his lower back, right where the tension is mounting. 

When she finally breaks away, he feels hit straight through the chest with how pretty she is. He hadn’t let himself really look before, ever, but it’s so obvious now, the grey-slate of the door a blurred backdrop against the vivid colour of her, lips kissed red and face flushed pink. She looks nervous, and he runs his knuckle over her cheek, bumping his nose on hers. “Are you sure?”

She kisses him again in response, even harder than before, like she wants to draw blood. His knees almost buckle, and he grips her to him tighter, steadying himself. 

“Blair,” he says, hardly able to catch his breath, hardly able to believe this is happening. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she says, an edge of scolding that burns through him. It’s all he needs, bending slightly and lifting her up, her delighted little gasp knocking the wind out of him. 

The sheets of his unmade bed move like dark waves when he sets her down, and he thinks of Aphrodite and the sea foam, of Katherine Hepburn, of the copy of _Metamorphosis_ left open on his pillow that slides to the ground with a dull thud, of the lights being left on and if he should turn them off, of not wanting to assume, of really, really wanting to see this, see her. Her top is gone, slid off with the book, and he loses his train of thought to her skin under his mouth, wanting to map her whole body with his tongue but starting with the smooth line of her collarbone. She’s all goosebumps, every part of her so delicate under his hands, her breathing gone shallow. He wants to break her in a way that won’t hurt, wants to feel her shatter around him. He pulls her shoes off, one by one, wiggling them a little before dropping them to the ground, and she lets out that shy laugh, that sweet smile, and _oh,_ Dan _wants._

Her heart shakes the small frame of her ribcage like bass through a speaker. He presses his palm over her, the way he would as a child, trying to feel the music, hold it in his hands and make it real. She stares up at him with that curious raise of her brows, lips parted and tongue trained to tease.

“Dan?” she says — and this gives her away most of all, so unlike the way she usually says it. He meets her eyes, and that’s real. It’s real. “Your room’s a mess.”

“I wasn’t expecting company,” he says, untucking her tank slowly, smoothing his cool palms over her warm stomach. She helps him lift it off, already having rid him of his sweater, and he hardly remembers it coming off save for the brief moment of darkness, her there and then not and then there again. 

“You would’ve cleaned up for me?” she says, and her voice is all breathy, and her nipples are puckered, and he’s so hard he can hardly feel anything else, thinks his tongue and toes may have gone numb. “If you’d known?”

Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, her mouth pink like the blush spread across her chest. Pink like a sunset on a midsummer night. Pink like —

He presses two fingers to her lips, curling them inside her mouth, her tongue warm on him as she moans appreciatively. It’s not something he would normally do, but normally he wouldn’t be between Blair Waldorf’s legs, so he supposes anything goes. 

“Can I?” he whispers, with her skirt off and his fingers digging under the waistband of her stockings. 

“Can you what?” she says, trailing a hand over his shoulder blade, so impossibly soft, and he knew that this was her all along, he just never for the life of him thought he’d get to feel it. 

“My mouth,” he says. “Are you… Is that –?”

Her laugh is light enough that it might be a sigh. He’s sure she’ll tease him, but she just nods. The waistband of her stockings etched marks into her skin, her stomach dipping under his mouth as he kisses the reddened line. She’s so wet he can smell it, kissing her core through the thin fabric the way he’d kissed her mouth. 

Her hands slide into his hair, and he wonders about missing pieces, wonders if tonight is just an ellipses in her plan, or if it’s a whole new chapter. But she whines, her back arching, thighs spreading wider for him, and he decides he’ll worry about it later. 

* * *

He reaches for her, already half-aware in his barely awake state that she’s gone, back to her tower and washing off the remnants of him on her skin. He tries not to be too hurt about it.

The bed is still warm under his hand, and when he opens his eyes it’s to the soft light of morning on empty sheets. He rubs over his eyes, shifts, startles.

“You snore,” Blair says. She perches next to him, her knees folded, feet tucked to the side. She would look quite proper if she wasn’t just in one of his old _Strand_ t-shirts.

“Sorry.”

She shifts, exposing a smattering of bruises on her innermost thighs; little yellowing fingerprints, purpled kisses in the shape of his mouth, his teeth. She wouldn’t have been able to wash him off if she’d tried. 

“I like you better in the morning,” she says. “You’re quieter.”

“How long you been watching me sleep, Edward?”

Her brows raise. He says, “Cullen. Twilight? Jenny –“

“I got it,” Blair says. “Not long. I was going to leave.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was listing pros and cons,” she says. “Pro: your mouth has proven to be quite useful when you’re not talking.”

He snorts, his hand sliding up her thigh and just resting there. She looks at it, then him. “Con?”

“Con,” she says. “Your selection of morning-after attire is atrocious.”

“I’ll go shopping,” he says. 

She worries her lip between her teeth, looking over him long enough to make him self-conscious. Finally, she says, “Was last night a mistake?”

“Probably,” Dan says. Her face falls, just a little, and he bites his tongue. “That was – I’m kidding. I don’t think it was.”

He’d gone so slow — too slow to be something casual, something with no meaning behind it — been more tender with her than he’d been with anyone, himself included, in a long time. 

“Do you?” he says. She sets her hand on his chest, and he clasps it, brings it up to his lips. Her brow arches, curiouser and curiouser. 

“I haven’t decided yet,” she says. And then she kisses him. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> wrote this to unwind after a Stressful week and i don’t know how i feel about it but thought i’d post anyway. as always you can follow me on tumblr @mysteriesofloves where i’ve been writing lots of little headcanon posts recently !


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